Low-Light Environments Can Be Viewed as if They Were Recorded in Bright Areas

The SPAD sensor newly developed by Canon employs a proprietary pixel architecture that reflects photons inside the pixel to detect photons across the entire range of effective pixels. Under equivalent light, this SPAD sensor can capture the same images as a conventional CMOS sensor while requiring only 1/10 of the imaging area. This makes possible an ultra-compact design that can be installed even in small devices and greatly increases sensitivity. By equipping cameras designed for low-light and monitoring applications with this new SPAD sensor, even video footage of poorly lit environments can be viewed as if it was recorded in bright areas, enabling identification of subject movement as though viewing with the naked eye in well-lit environments.
 

Unprecedented High-Speed and High-Precision Distance Measurements

The SPAD sensor that Canon developed has a time resolution as precise as 100 picoseconds, which enables extremely fast information processing. This makes it possible to capture the movement of objects that move extremely quickly, such as light particles.
 

In addition to high resolution and high sensitivity, it is also capable of capturing light trails moving at a speed of approximately 300,000 kilometres per second (7.5 times the Earth’s circumference). Taking advantage of its high-speed response, this new SPAD sensor is expected to be used for driverless vehicles, medical diagnostic imaging equipment, scientific measurement equipment, to name just a few possibilities.

For example, thanks to its temporal resolution and high sensitivity, there are expectations that this technology may be used in the process of obtaining high-speed, high-precision 3D special information for such applications as distance measurement for automated vehicles, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). What’s more, in the field of medicine, this sensor holds the potential for use in camera components of medical diagnostic imaging devices, microscopes, and other equipment. Such devices may be used to determine the behaviour and position of fluorescent substances in patient bodies that emit faint light in extremely brief time spans. This capability could potentially help identify early-stage cancer cells or other illnesses, or localized afflictions in their initial stages.